By My Side
by DawnGranger
Summary: A story of how love and friendship can come from the bloody horror of war they face from day to day. Rewriting an old story on an old account. I give you the new 'When a Heavy Calls' by the older Miss Ransome. You don't need to read that before this.


**AN:** This is a rewrite of an old story of mine. I would post it on that account, but I lost a whole bunch of things and in short, I created a new account.  
I don't suggest reading it as my writing back then was very high-school indeed, but here is the link anyway if you want to see the difference and for those who read the old one s/5327375/1/When-A-Heavy-Calls

So I present to you... **By Her Side**

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_It certainly wasn't __**"love at first sight"**__, but undoubtedly, it didn't take long to fall for one of the members of my team. Making her fall for me was the hard part…_

This was supposed to be just another gruesome war; the kind where your comrades are your closest friends and you would do anything for the good of your country. I barely know what this is. I've been hired to work with a team of mercenaries from all around the world to fight an equivalent sized team of mercenaries in order to claim some sort of territory or intelligence.

Every morning we are injected with a serum that takes away our ability to die, but not our ability to suffer. I've been doing this for a couple of years now; every day we're sent out to a territory where we slaughter and in turn become slaughtered, so much so that I no longer fear death. In the end that could be a good thing, after all, most people fear the pain of death rather than death itself. Only when people around us die do we fear people leaving for good. Who knows, maybe one day this serum could wear off on someone just a bit too early…

I've never had someone close to me pass away. When I see the people close to me in the team get decapitated, it doesn't bother me in the slightest way as I'm confident that every time they do, they'll be back in the heat of the battle within the hour. To put it simply, this crazy war has desensitised us in a way nothing ever should.

That's enough of my rambling; I guess I should get straight to the point. I've never been in love, so I'm not completely sure this is it. What my parents have is love, my feelings for this woman seem a bit off in comparison. She seems a bit… in a whole different league. But I digress.

I was brought up in Coober Pedy, South Australia; a town that's roughly 900km away from Adelaide. With dark hair, my mother's blue eyes and a tan from the Australian sun, I was certainly a sight if there ever was one. Though, I felt a bit out of place when it came to my team. It seemed as though most of them have never seen the sun, and in some cases, I wasn't too far off with that judgement.

As a natural born hunter, I guess the job offer wasn't too much of a surprise. The high pay was what I didn't expect, nor was the contract which stated that we would have to stay with them for five years; the pay will be worth it in the end.

Well that's me in a nutshell, so perhaps I should start from the beginning of this story.

We've been training in our specialized fields every day for a bit over a month now and it was almost time to be deployed into the battlefield. The team has been getting to know one another and how people will attack, defend and support each other when the time comes. Some of us are closer to certain teammates than others, but that was to be expected.

I myself have made friends with the team's Engineer along with our own personal Pyromaniac. They're a couple of friendly guys I can have a beer with and chat to after a long day; the others seem to have their own way of cooling down. Our Demolitions expert sometimes joins us on the deck as we have an end of the day beer and smoke when he's not trying to get on the good side our Heavy weapons guy. About a fortnight after being deployed for the first time, our bonding circles seemed to be carved in stone, ending up with Mister Scrumpy sticking with us more often for an end of the day drink.

"… So then I turned around and lit that dirty Spy up before he could stab me in the back a third time. He can fool me twice, but I'm determined to not get myself killed three times in a row by the same guy," our Pyro was saying as he downed the last of his beer.

I opened my second bottle before responding, "I know what you mean, mate. That BLU Spy has been getting on my nerves as well. How anyone has made such cloaking technology is amazing to me, and they gave it to the snobbiest Frenchie bastard I've ever met."

Dell, our Engineer, looked around before leaning in to us, "The Frenchie on our team isn't too bad. A bit insane, but she's mighty nice to look at," his Texan accent was as thick as usual, despite the hushed tone. We all nodded in agreement and looked through the glass door at where she was sitting on a couch next to our Medic. They seemed to be having an intimate conversation about something; Spy was smoking with a silver cigarette holder and Medic had a finger holding a page of quite a large book.

We looked back at each other, "I think I'll get used to this quite nicely," said Pyro, slicking his thick blonde hair back with the rest of his hair. Demo spoke up in quite a thick Scottish, "Now, now, I think it's best if you lot try not to get involved with our teammates. You youngins' can keep things in your pants for a while, can't ye'?"

Pyro, Engie and I gave each other weird looks before Dell spoke up, "We're not in our twenties anymore. We're not exactly going around and chasing tail; just noticing the talent on the field." We all nodded and sat in silence for a moment while Pyro finished his cigarette and then all headed inside to get ready for bed. It was nice, having our own rooms. Since the team did essentially everything together, it was nice to get a bit of privacy every now and then, and sleeping was definitely an activity that I preferred to do alone.

I changed into boxer pants before heading to the communal bathroom to brush my teeth and clean up for the night. When I got there, I noticed a figure at the sinks. Her raven hair was let out, and it reached the small of her back. In a white silk nightgown, she too seemed to be ready to go to bed. I used the sink next to her; striking up a bit of small chat to the team member I knew the least.

"Great work on the field today, you really helped us out when we were being slaughtered," I said to her, as she concentrated on brushing her teeth in the mirror. She looked up with curiosity, though being almost as tall as yours truly, it was only a slight tilt of her head. With the toothbrush in her mouth, she tried to respond, "Thanks, but I was just doing my job." She continued to scrub and then rinsed her mouth out, "I'm very glad you were out there too. I could have been lit on fire a couple too many times if it weren't for you." I noticed how her blue eyes lit up when she smiled, which in turn, made me smile. Her accent seemed as thick and smooth as her hair.

I continued to brush my teeth while she was packing up to head to bed. "It was nice talking to you, Sniper," she said as soon as she finished picking everything up. I rinsed my mouth and turned around to see her. "I'm Dave by the way," I said as I held out a hand to shake hers. A smile arose again as she held my hand and shook it, "I'm Anika. It was a pleasure to brush my teeth with you." I wasn't sure if she actually enjoyed briefly cleaning up with me, or if English was still a bit new to her. I smiled back, "Maybe we can do it again sometime, say tomorrow night at ten?" She giggled, "Same time, same place." I didn't want to ruin the moment by responding with, _it's a date__**. **_We let go of each other's hands as she started to walk away, "Goodnight, Anika." She turned around, "Goodnight, Dave."

I guess that was the moment when I started to fall for our Medic.

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**AN:** _So what did you think?_

Should I have left that old story line alone and moved onto more pressing fandoms (ie. Hohmagawd Loki) or did you like the rewrite?  
If anyone prefers the writing style of the older story then I really should get my priorities straight O_O

**_Please review, I need to know if people like this enough to finish rewriting :D_**  
Should have a lot more time to write as well, though with Uni, I'll need to take long breaks at random times.


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